The Istanbul Convention and the war on… gender
Let me now try to inform you what’s been going on here in Bulgaria (among other crazy things). The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, popularly known as the Istanbul Convention, suddenly became an occasion for cultural wars.
The full text of the convention in English can be found here.
I can’t embed the Balkan Insight article (the best thing I found in English) here, so I’ll just quote the beginning:
Convention on Gender Violence Draws Backlash in Bulgaria
Moves to ratify the so-called Istanbul Convention of the Council of Europe are encountering strong opposition both from parties in the Bulgarian government and the opposition.
Members of the Bulgarian government and of the main opposition Socialist Party have joined forces to oppose the government’s decision to pass the so-called Istanbul Convention on gender-based violence to parliament for ratification.
Full article here: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/convention-on-violence-against-women-faces-backlash-in-bulgaria-01-04-2018
And meanwhile it keeps getting worse, with an amazing unity of "left" and "right" politicians claiming that socially constructed gender roles do not exist and there are only "biological" men and women while the convention is supposedly trying to legalize the mysterious "third gender" that none of them can define properly.
The lack of a generally recognized word for gender-as-a-cultural-construct in Bulgarian adds to the confusion to be sure, and I wish the translation had circumvented that problem more successfully, but I don't think that would have stopped any "traditionalists" looking for an enemy against whom to unite their (potential) electorate.
And there are all those journalists, kinda-sorta journalist figures and unfortunately even medical professionals or psychologists claiming that the convention is a deed of the Devil, a foreign plot to destroy civilization, you name it. And of course there is mass hysteria in comment sections and Facebook discussions.
The opposition to the convention is not always religiously motivated, mind you; patriarchal mentality is very strong here even in its secular post-communist form.
Interestingly enough, the voices of reason on the other side now include a conservative Eastern Orthodox theologian who explained in an article that the convention has nothing to do with a “third gender” or same-sex unions. It feels very strange to think that he is involuntarily on the same side as feminists and LGBTI activists. :)
Sorry, it’s in Bulgarian, but I’m posting a link just in case: https://www.dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2018/01/07/3108348_falshiviiat_skandal_s_istanbulskata_konvenciia/
The full text of the convention in English can be found here.
I can’t embed the Balkan Insight article (the best thing I found in English) here, so I’ll just quote the beginning:
Convention on Gender Violence Draws Backlash in Bulgaria
Moves to ratify the so-called Istanbul Convention of the Council of Europe are encountering strong opposition both from parties in the Bulgarian government and the opposition.
Members of the Bulgarian government and of the main opposition Socialist Party have joined forces to oppose the government’s decision to pass the so-called Istanbul Convention on gender-based violence to parliament for ratification.
Full article here: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/convention-on-violence-against-women-faces-backlash-in-bulgaria-01-04-2018
And meanwhile it keeps getting worse, with an amazing unity of "left" and "right" politicians claiming that socially constructed gender roles do not exist and there are only "biological" men and women while the convention is supposedly trying to legalize the mysterious "third gender" that none of them can define properly.
The lack of a generally recognized word for gender-as-a-cultural-construct in Bulgarian adds to the confusion to be sure, and I wish the translation had circumvented that problem more successfully, but I don't think that would have stopped any "traditionalists" looking for an enemy against whom to unite their (potential) electorate.
And there are all those journalists, kinda-sorta journalist figures and unfortunately even medical professionals or psychologists claiming that the convention is a deed of the Devil, a foreign plot to destroy civilization, you name it. And of course there is mass hysteria in comment sections and Facebook discussions.
The opposition to the convention is not always religiously motivated, mind you; patriarchal mentality is very strong here even in its secular post-communist form.
Interestingly enough, the voices of reason on the other side now include a conservative Eastern Orthodox theologian who explained in an article that the convention has nothing to do with a “third gender” or same-sex unions. It feels very strange to think that he is involuntarily on the same side as feminists and LGBTI activists. :)
Sorry, it’s in Bulgarian, but I’m posting a link just in case: https://www.dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2018/01/07/3108348_falshiviiat_skandal_s_istanbulskata_konvenciia/